


The Storyteller

by TrashPrince69



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashPrince69/pseuds/TrashPrince69
Summary: An original little thing I wrote for a writing class once, nothing too special, but I hope you like it regardless! It's just an unnamed character talking about life and stories.





	The Storyteller

Stories make sense. They have rules, structure, lovable main characters, a clear antagonist, and a satisfying end. Well, a usually satisfying end. Sometimes the author is an ass an makes the ending open ended or just plain dull, but that's a rant for another book.  
Stories don't typically end bad for their heroes, unless of course the author of said story is some sort of malicious sadist who derives pleasure from making their characters suffer and not get what they want.   
A story can allow you to escape reality for a bit. You can explore whole new worlds, live the life of the hero, and make new friends along the way. A story can let you be in the shoes of a heroic knight in shining armor on a quest to rescue a princess, or toss you into the mind of a teenage girl framed for murder. Okay, that was a leap, but you get the idea. Stories let you experience all sorts of concepts and mindsets, many of them out of your own realm of experience.  
Stories have twists, turns, and loops that can make you sick, ready to puke, but leave your heart pounding in excitement as you allow yourself to get lost in the thrill. Stories have feeling, emotion. A story can tug on your heartstrings, give you a heartbreaking, but somehow relateable backstory that makes you adore the villain, or play on an annoying trait or action that makes you loathe the hero.  
Stories can make you laugh, cry, shake with rage, or make your heart pound in fear as you hang onto every word with eagerness. A story can leave you thinking, maybe even reevaluate yourself and your choices. Some stories, however, might bore you half to death with their long drawn out explanations or descriptions, or with a droning and preachy moral message. 'Cause, let's face it, no one likes a moral analysis while trying to be entertained. If we wanted to be preached at about morals, we'd probably go to a church or our parents house for dinner.  
All that, "Back in my day," shpeel that everyone loves to hear. Yes, Father, back your day we all had the morals of a collectivist group, but now I'm allowed to have my own brain.  
Speaking of the "back in my day" babble, you ever look at history? It's like a story book. A massive compilation of the world's best and most successful stories. Battles fought and won, countries conquered, champions saving cities and earning the love and respect of the people. History, while inaccurate in many ways, being written by the victors, is an amazing thing to go through.  
Imagining yourself in the shoes of a knight leading a charge against an enemy army, or as a king making a judgement on a criminal. History has stories that might make you angry or distraught, making you hate them, but that doesn't make it a bad story just because it's upsetting. I bring that up because I have heard many people claim a story was bad just because it upset them.  
Stories aren't always made to comfort you or a confirm a bias. Some are made purely to scare you, some are made to make you bawl, and some are made purely to piss you off. Stories always invoke emotion, it's part of what they're supposed to do. If a story makes you angry, that's no reason to attack the author or storyteller. If it makes you mad, then it makes you mad and you'll have to put on your big kid pants and deal with it.  
A story is never automatically bad just because it brings out negative emotions. If a story makes you so mad that you're shaking, then it's well written! Very well written.  
You shouldn't be forcing the emotion into a scene when you tell an emotional story, that's what makes it bad. Piling ideas on top of one another like a two foot cake might seem like a fantastic idea... Until you actually try it. It'll fall over and make a mess, and if it doesn't, trying to consume it is going to leave you feeling sick about one-twelfth through. Maybe not even that.  
My point in talking about stories is this. Life, while it's own story, isn't as nice and clear cut as our books and imaginations. We aren't gifted with an all knowing narrator to guide us along our paths to eternal joy. We have to stumble around in a pitch black mansion, armed with nothing but a tea light and stick to try and find a light switch that may or may not even exist.   
Life is messy and probably smells like your older brother's bedroom. Ah, the stench of sweat, puberty, and angst mixed with a hint of cynicism. Makes for a lovely perfume if your goal is to make people run for nearest bucket of soap.  
Life will drop you into a tough, unfamiliar situation, pants or not, and leave you to figure it all out without help. And if you didn't have pants, it'll expect you to find those too.  
Life will kick your ass outside in the middle of a spring rainstorm, no cover, splash mud all over your nice outfit, then reprimand you like an annoyed mother for being outside in the first place.  
We are not as durable as our storybook heroes, unfortunately. We struggle a lot. We fall and we can typically pull ourselves back up, but some of us just can't. Some will just accept their fate on the floor, never moving, although they might complain about being there, but never making an effort to move.   
Others try their hardest to get up again. They push themselves up over and over and over and over again, begging for help to at least stand again. Many get help as passersby will see them and help them up. Sometimes they'll even get help walking again. Some people, sadly, get left behind in the dark.  
Our heroes may brush it all off in a short time, quickly overcoming their traumas and losses, but we are often crippled by our own. We grieve for months, even years, after a loved one passes. We get caught in loops of "what ifs" and "could I have prevented this". We are sometimes chained to rocks, bound to our pasts.  
Well, that got dark, but anyway. Enough of my mindless babble. You didn't come here for me to give you an existential crisis. You came for a story! I wonder what kind?


End file.
